Tue 19 September 2023:
In a pay dispute, thousands of NHS consultants are on strike throughout England as the health system braces itself for more industrial action.
On Wednesday, junior doctors will join consultants in staging the first-ever joint strike in the history of the NHS.
Junior doctors, who have held 19 days of strike action since March, will then continue their strike on Thursday and Friday this week.
Both consultant and junior doctor members of the British Medical Association (BMA) will again join forces for strikes on October 2, 3 and 4.
Thousands of operations and appointments have been cancelled as a result of the strikes, with NHS leaders warning that some patients are seeing their appointments rescheduled three times.
A Christmas Day-style service will be provided on the joint strike action days, with emergency care the priority.
It comes as the government outlined plans to extend strike laws to ensure doctors and nurses in hospitals provide a minimum level of cover.
The new regulations, which are open to consultation, would mean doctors and nurses have to provide a certain level of cover after being issued with a “work notice” by employers on what is needed to maintain “necessary and safe levels of service.”
Consultations on minimum service levels have already run for ambulance staff, fire and rescue services and passenger rail workers, after the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act became law.
Serious disruption
Meanwhile the NHS Confederation, which represents all NHS organisations, said increasing numbers of patients, including cancer patients, are seeing their appointments rescheduled more than once due to strikes.
Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the organisation, said: “This is likely to be the biggest walkout the NHS has ever seen, will cause serious disruption, and put patients at the highest level of risk in living memory.
“Leaders are concerned that this dangerous situation is being underestimated by the Government, telling us that this feels much different and more complex than previous strikes, with most reporting greater difficulties in rota planning and having to cancel huge numbers of elective operations and appointments in advance.
“This is much worse than before as we’re now seeing patients who have already had an operation cancelled due to industrial action be hit again with a cancellation to their rescheduled appointment.
“Leaders have also told us that this time round a higher number of operations and appointments for cancer patients are being cancelled, meaning that some of the very sickest patients may be suffering the most.”
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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